


Summer Moon Across Your Face

by gala_apples



Category: Glee
Genre: Beltane, M/M, Party, References to Child Abuse, Religion, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 06:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Ryder had known this party was a religious event he probably wouldn't have gone. But now that he's here there's no pressing reason to leave. Not knowing Jake is somewhere in the crowd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Moon Across Your Face

**Author's Note:**

> Two days ago Nubianamy capsed at me JYDER. BELTANE. So I took Ryder and she took Jake, and we both wrote Jyder at Beltane. Her fic can be found here [Spring Will Take The Bow](http://archiveofourown.org/works/782763).

“We’re here,” Celeste says unnecessarily as Miranda begins the noisy process of parallel parking on a gravel road.

“Yeah,” Ryder says. He pulls out his phone and starts to update FourSquare, only to get a smack on the hand.

“This isn’t about that,” Celeste says.

“So, put it away?”

“Leave it in the car,” Miranda suggests.

Ryder puts his cell down the middle seat, then slips it back into his pocket when Celeste climbs out of the SUV before him. He’s a child of the twenty first century, not having it available feels weird and wrong. He can always just not use it.

“Come on football boy, we need your arms.”

Three minutes later Ryder’s holding at least a dozen specialised hula hoops in the crook of one arm, the other steadying Celeste, who’s carrying a massive tray of a hundred frosted cupcakes. Miranda’s got her own sealed box of something. Considering that the cardboard is stamped Property of Sue Sylvester: I Will Feed You To A Bear on all six sides, the less Ryder has to do with the theft the better.

“Who’s house is this?”

“I dunno. Jake, maybe?”

Ryder shakes his head. He’s been to Jake’s house more times than he can count over the last year. Jake lives in this open concept house that’s been split into rooms with bead curtains and different patterns of floor tile. He definitely doesn’t live in a farm house.

Miranda shrugs. “His mom is in my mom’s circle, anyway.”

He puts the question to the back of his mind and strides up the long driveway with the two girls. It probably doesn’t matter anyway. The other times he’s followed the football team to house parties he’s never exactly written a thank you note for hosting him the day after.

From the sounds of it all the action is in the back yard. They still go through the house, as is party etiquette. It’s empty apart from the kitchen, where a man in his mid-twenties is putting M&M rice krispie squares onto an already heaping plastic plate. As soon as he notices them he puts down his plate and seizes Miranda into a hug.

 _Owner?_ Ryder mouths at Celeste. She very carefully shrugs, then starts looking for counter space to put her cupcakes down on. There’s not much left. Apparently everyone except him has brought something. It’s more like a potluck than the typical house party’s scattered bowls of chips.

“How the hell did you get an invite, Rosen?”

“Miranda Miranda Miranda. When will you learn? Everyone loves me!”

“We were given two each, and someone wasted theirs on you?” She shakes her head theatrically.

“Or maybe I just appeared. I floated in on the wind.”

“Sure you did.”

Ryder was kind of counting on a introduction or five to her other friends, but she’s made no attempt with Rosen, if that’s even the name he should be calling him. It’s okay though. He’s a friendly enough guy, and he knows how to put on a good face. It’s actually one of his best skills. He can do this without her.

The back yard is massive, as one would expect from a house in this area. In the first third of the yard closest to the house is a bonfire. Ryder’s been camping with his family a few times, and once with a church group when he was a kid. Each time there was a fire, but it’s nothing compared to this. Those fires were the size of trash cans. This is the size of an inflatable kiddie pool, at least. Wide enough that the entire Cheerios team could sit around it comfortably, except for some reason the party is invite only, and for some reason Miranda’s second invite was him, not another cheerleader.

The way things are set up there seem to be a few distinct areas people are congregating. The lawn chairs loosely curled around the fire, a collection of blankets, and far beyond the fire, on the distant edge of the property. There are a lot of people at each place, more than he would have expected from the level of secrecy Miranda held him to. Ryder shifts in his shoes for a second before heading for the people sitting down eating.

“My friend brought cupcakes, if any of you want?”

“And what did you bring?” The voice sounds cigarette stained, richer than any teenage girl would have. Ryder squints, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

“They’re hula hoops you can set on fire? Celeste and Miranda-”

“Oh, I wonder what routine Miranda’s got planned,” another voice, definitely a man’s, says. Ryder stops himself before he says she doesn’t have anything planned. Just because she didn’t say anything to him doesn’t mean she doesn’t. Maybe everyone here likes fire a bit too much. She did invite him just after he lit the lint on his socks on fire out of sheer boredom, after all.

“Do you want some wine, sweetheart?”

“I’m...underage?” Normally he wouldn’t admit to it, he’d just take the red solo cup and move on, but this is a very different situation.

“Doesn’t matter sweetheart. Not tonight, the Green Man’s night.”

“Yeah, no. I’m good.” Ryder’s not going to be taking a cup of alcohol from an adult man who’s calling him pet names. 

“Come back if you change your mind,” the man calls out as Ryder does an about face. He wrinkles his face a bit to no one in particular, then starts walking.

He makes as far as the edge of the stone on the outer side of the back door when Miranda and Rosen come out.

“You can just lean those against the side of the house.”

“If you don’t need them yet, maybe I should go lock them in your car?”

“No, the side’s fine. No one here would steal from another.” Miranda grins the gleaming teeth grin that if Ryder wasn’t already stupidly, hopelessly in love with two other people would make him want her.

“Make any friends yet?”

Ryder’s about to answer when Miranda kicks Rosen. “Don’t be a jerk.” Ryder doesn’t see how the words were rude, but Miranda obviously knows how to read the man better than he does. “You should, anyway. There are a few of your Glee people here. Or make new friends. Whatever. And grab a cupcake!”

He takes the dismissal calmly, just splits off from them and goes to sit in one of the lawn chairs around the fire. He doesn’t have to start a conversation, the guy in the chair beside him does. Ryder wore a black t-shirt with silver and gold clock faces all over it, one he bought the one day he was bored enough to go shopping with Tina and Blaine and Tina needed to be distracted from trying to convince Blaine to buy a brass coloured bowtie. Evidently Andrew is into steampunk too, and takes the printed pattern to mean Ryder cares about the subculture. Unlike that day, it’s interesting talking about steampunk from Andrew‘s perspective, which is less about the fashion, and more about how things would have been built. 

Andrew’s almost got Ryder convinced to read Jules Verne when Joe plops down on the grass beside his leg. Ryder would recognise those dreads anywhere.

“Hey man,” he says lazily. Then he turns to Andrew and stretches out a hand. “Joe.”

“Andrew,” the bearded teen returns. “How are you liking Beltane so far?”

Joe smiles. “I’m a non-believer. My faith follows a different path. But I appreciate the experience, and I’m having a good time so far.”

It doesn’t take an expert on interpersonal relationships to see that Andrew’s suddenly uncomfortable. “You Christian?”

Ryder steps in before Joe feels the need to preach and before Andrew recoils so hard he falls off his lawn chair and into the fire. “Yeah, he is. But he’s not Westboro style. Last year he sang a singing valentine to one half of a lesbian couple from the other half.”

“Well that’s good. I guess. I’m gonna go see if there’s any meatballs left. Vanna only makes so many an event.” Andrew gets up and practically bolts.

“So much for bridging the gap,” Joe sighs. He remains remorseful for all of three seconds before smiling again. “You can’t be friends with everyone. You can only try.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Anyway, I just saw you and wanted to say hi. I should really go and help them set up the maypole.”

“What?”

“It’s like, this pole? Like a tetherball pole. Except you attach ribbons to it. They need someone to shimmy up it and attach them, apparently no one thought to bring a ladder, or it’s broken, or they want to haze the guest with the dreadlocks. Whichever.”

Ryder shakes his head. He’s not sure if this is another case of people thinking he’s stupid because he’s dyslexic, or just Joe’s natural tendency to explain everything. “I know what a maypole is. I just don’t get why they have one.”

“Whoever invited you told you that it was a Beltane party, right? A religious holiday for Pagan people? It’s one of their rituals. I won’t actually join in, no false idols and all, but The Man also says to help your brothers, so up the pole I go to the applause of all the short people. Which, I should really-” Joe gracefully leaps to his feet. “Later.”

Ryder draws his legs up onto the worn canvas of the lawn chair. It’s sort of a girly position, much like the way Blaine always crosses his legs, but no one cares about that in glee, and if Joe is right and this is a place for hippies no one will care here either. He needs to think about this for a second, and if he’s closed off it’s less likely that people will bother him.

On the face of it, he’s been lured under false pretenses. Miranda didn’t say _do you want to come to my youth group meeting Wednesday night_ to which the answer would have been a resounding no. She’d asked if he wanted to go to a bonfire, and of course Ryder did. What teenager didn’t want that?

He can leave. Maybe not the way he came, Miranda seems pretty at home here, which might mean she won’t be willing to ditch early to give Ryder a ride. But Mr Schuester has a ‘drunk dial and I’ll help’ policy. Coach Bieste does too, and since it’s May he can’t exactly get a punishment of suspension from the next game. Ryder’s pretty sure Blaine has a car, and he’d pick up on an emergency call. Sugar definitely has a car, the question is if she’s currently in Ohio. And then there’s family. He’s got at least seven cousins old enough to borrow the family car and at least three of them are ballsy enough to take it for long enough to get into the countryside and back.

But the thing is, he doesn’t have to leave. For a religious event, there hasn’t been any obnoxious religious bombardment. Ryder was raised on the bigger the crucifix the better the church, and not being allowed inside without dipping your hand in holy water, and the mass taking up an entire morning. He’s been here an hour at least and the only thing that Ryder’s seen that’s religious is the maypole, and that definitely doesn’t count as in his face. He didn’t even know it was until Joe told him, and he still doesn’t know what it represents. Unless some chanting starts up later there’s really no reason to throw a fit and leave.

Which means that the wine that the guy had was sacrament, or whatever Pagans call sacrament, which means that there’s no way that he’d dose it. Which means that Ryder can safely have a glass. Or five. 

Some time later -possibly half a bottle later, although the nice men and women sitting on the blankets aren’t making him count- Jake sits down beside him. Ryder puts his head on Jake’s shoulder for a second before he remember he can’t do that. He’s not exactly certain why not, but he knows that sober-him would be mad at him for doing it, so he pulls away.

“What are you doing here, man?”

“What are _you_ doing here,” Ryder replies, poking Jake in the chest. “Man.”

“Me and my mom are in Catrin’s circle.”

“You and Puck got a Jewish tattoo at Christmas.” Ryder definitely knows Jake’s got that star on him, because he and Santana had that conversation about underage body mod one of the times she came back to Lima, the time she tried to steal Brittany from Sam.

“Puck’s an important part of my life.”

Ryder frowns. “So’s music and you didn’t get Beethoven tattooed on your ass.”

“Whatever man. No one else has to love your tattoos except you, or don’t you follow Kat Von D’s twitter?”

Ryder elbows Jake because it feels appropriate, then picks up the plate he’s put down on the blanket. On it are five cupcakes and a cold hunk of chicken breast. He grabs one of the cupcakes, obviously. Jake needs his protein.

“You didn’t invite me,” he says through a mouthful of chocolate and purple icing. Ryder’s not mad or anything, but that was not cool of Jake to pick Joe and someone else instead of him. 

“I know your family is Catholic.”

Okay, no. He’s kinda mad. Everyone’s always all pissy at him for assuming he knows what’s what, with Unique and Marley and everything, but people can just assume on him. That’s definitely bull.

“My parents are Catholic! My sisters, maybe, I dunno, I don’t talk religion with them. But me? My belief kind of followed Nina out the bathroom window. And maybe we don’t talk religion either, so you just guessed from the cross on the fireplace. It’s still a crappy argument when Joe is right the fuck there!” Ryder points wildy for emphasis, not actually sure where Joe is on the property. He narrowly avoids poking one of the older Pagans in the face.

“Matteo invited him. They’re on that interfaith paintball team together.” Jake says, clearly attempting to soothe him.

“Whatever!” That’s not better. That’s worse, even, because Jake didn’t just invite Joe and not-him, Jake invited two not-hims.

A girl with a dandelion wreath in her hair pats Ryder’s shoulder. “Eat your cupcake. It’ll soak up the alcohol.”

“Her name was Nina? The girl who...hurt you?”

Ryder topples backwards into the grass, less because he’s too drunk to sit up and more because he doesn’t have to look directly at Jake this way. “And that, folks, is why you don’t get drunk around sober people. You say things that they don’t forget.”

“Uh, this seems like a private conversation,” one of them says.

“We’ll give you five,” another says.

A face enters Ryder’s field of vision. It’s a black man with a shaved head. He must be squatting because he’s close enough to touch Ryder’s shoulder. “The Lord and Lady bless you.”

Huh. Well that’s nice. At least it’s more inclusive than just God bless, God being a male pronoun.

Ryder listens to the grass crunch as the large group of people walk away. He feels a little bad for making them leave their staked out areas, except he didn’t, really. They chose to. And it’s more Jake’s fault anyway, for using the phrase ‘hurt you’ like he thought Ryder might have a mental breakdown if he used the word molest.

“You wanna talk about her?” Jake asks, tip of his shoe nudging Ryder’s shin.

“You’re kidding, right? I never wanna talk about her.” Not even to his therapist, whose entire job was to figure out a way of purging her from his mind. “I wanna talk about how come you didn’t wanna see me here.”

“I told you, I thought you were-”

“And I told you, Joe’s here, so it can’t just be a Pagan or willing to convert thing. Miranda invited me, and she knows me well enough to know I wouldn’t convert to anything.”

“Miranda invited you because she’s a nosy yenta bitch.”

“What’s that mean?” The words maybe come out a little slurred. He’s drunk, and it’s probably at least one, and it’s a school night.

Maybe Jake is tired too, because before he answers he slumps backwards until he’s shoulder to shoulder. Ryder’s still looking up at the stars, but he can feel Jake looking at him. “You know that it’s Beltane, at least, right?”

“Yeah. I’ve heard that word like a dozen times.”

“Did anyone tell you what that meant?”

“Something about a green man?”

“Um. Yes. That too. Basically it’s for celebrating the abundance of the fertile earth. And people being a diverse bunch, some people focus on the second bit, and some people on the first bit. And some people literally, and some figuratively.”

“O...kay?”

Jake sighs. “Even more basically, some people here are really into planting gardens. There’s a thing against the house. But some people are dancing the maypole because it’s a fertility symbol.”

Ryder interrupts Jake with his laughter. “Oh man. Does Joe know that? Because he totally helped with that.”

Jake snickers too, which is good. Ryder might be an atheist, but he’s not an overly rude one. He doesn’t want people thinking he’s laughing at their belief systems, even if he doesn’t want any pushed at him.

“But then there’s, well. If you sit up a little bit, you can maybe see a small fire in the distance, near the treeline?”

Ryder cranes his neck so he doesn’t have to sit up. “Yeah?”

“Okay, so that’s a fire that people who wish to be more fertile jump over. I know it probably sounds silly, but it’s a thing we do. Sometimes. And to go with that, there are some blankets and sleeping bags left out there. If people want to get...you know...fertile.”

After a second or two of imagining that he blinks at the moon. “Miranda definitely forgot to mention the orgy aspect of tonight’s event.”

“It’s not- I mean, they’re all couples, I think. I dunno. I didn’t spy. I mean I could guess who’s out there, but manners say that if you don’t have someone to go out there with you don’t go out there. That’s a big part of the select guests thing. So nothing gets out of control, so there’s no creepers. And to make sure everyone’s sixteen. There could be a threesome, if they’re all in love. But love is important, and consent is mandatory.”

“So Miranda invited me because she wants to please your fertility god?”

“Okay first of all, we’re not into Greek myths, we don’t have a thousand separate deities. And second, no. I mean, maybe that’s why she invited Celeste, she’s pansexual, and I don’t know what Celeste is. But that’s not why she invited you.”

Ryder’s pretty proud of himself for knowing what pansexual is. He’s definitely more educated than he was at the beginning of the year. “You sound pretty sure. If Miranda likes everyone, then-”

“No dude. Yenta, I said. She invited you because she knows I want to jump the fire with you, but I didn’t ask you to come so I couldn’t ask you in a moment of weakness.”

That is...that is a huge fucking revelation. But “wait, weakness?”

“After everything that happened with Marley, having sex with you would either seem like I was using her as a beard, or using you to get her attention again.”

“Seem like to who?” Ryder asks. “Because it doesn’t seem like that to me, and I don’t care what it seems like to anyone else. So unless it seems that way to you, specifically, it really doesn’t matter. Like at all.”

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Jake says in a tone that means he knows exactly what’s happening, he’s just scared that it’s too good to be true. Like how after they won Regionals all of New Directions were jumping and screaming, except for Jake, who just kept asking ‘did we just win?’ over and over again. Ryder reassured him then, and he can do it again now.

“I like you. I also still like her, I’m not gonna lie. Pretty sure you still like her too, since breaking up was her idea. But I’ve liked you for almost as long. So if you wanna have sex with me, in a field, because your religion is like ten times more awesome than Kitty’s weird Left Behind thing, or the way Lexie from my Spanish class has to pretend to convulse and speak gibberish at her church, then I’m probably gonna say let’s jump over a fire.”

“Not tonight.”

“I’m not drunk enough that I’m gonna freak out in the morning.”

“I’d rather hear that in the morning,” Jake replies easily.

“Tomorrow, after school, we’re going to your house and building a fire in the back yard and jumping over it and then boning against your garage.”

“We’ll see tomorrow, okay?”

Ryder nods and tugs on Jake until the guy’s head is on his shoulder. There’s nothing to see, it’ll happen. For sure. But if Jake feels better waiting, then Ryder doesn’t mind spending the rest of the night staring at the sky with his potential boyfriend curled half on top of him. It’s a good night, either way.


End file.
